I have two teens who are experts in destructive driving thanks to NFS and other games we have, and I am wondering if we can put our gaming rig(s) into more productive use for them to learn, and gain some real life driving experience in a simulation environment...

Features you look for would not match into "family budged friendly"( http://www.automotto...ing-simulators/ ). There is casual driving simulators available but they won't cover real feeling of driving.

If you have a wheel and PS3, the licensing section in Gran Turismo 5 has a real good braking and handling section. They give you cars we are more inclined to drive everyday as well for those sections with low hp, front wheel drive hatches.

Outside just those, GT5 has circuits that are wet, circuits that are snow covered.

If you are aware of or have experience with games or simulators with driver education value for PC or online (have a G27 wheel) please post some ideas and/or a link.

Possible features...- help teach kids safe/defensive driving - signaling, right of way, parking skills...- consequences of distractions - texting .. so on... impaired driving simulation.- give them a feel for simple physics of vehicles on variety of surfaces relative to speed - rain, snow, ice...- various driving situations:city, highway - score the session based on mistakes they make - running a red light, not yielding so on...- family budget friendly- so on...

I have two teens who are experts in destructive driving thanks to NFS and other games we have, and I am wondering if we can put our gaming rig(s) into more productive use for them to learn, and gain some real life driving experience in a simulation environment...

I've long thought that there was a gap in the market here, since sims sarted getting good. Something like GT5, but with an empahsis on signaling, parking etc.
Not much replay value for an experienced driver, but you'd shift a ton of copies for 16th / 17th or whatever birthday per country you can start to learn.
I haven't seen many racing wheels with indicator stalks though!

That´s a good idea. When I started driving I had some negative impulses because of racing games, like getting hard on the throttle after a stop/slow corner straight up to maximum allowed speed.

Don´t get me wrong, I didn´t speed or do dangerous stuff -that´s not videogames fault, that´s the guy at the wheel being an asshole-, I always respected the rules, but things like the above made me be a very uneficient driver first year. I heard tons of times "don´t build speed that fast, there´s no point", and they were right. Thank God I started paying the gas soon, so I learnt the lesson.

Video games are fantasy. If you had something that simulated a real road, it would only be minutes before you'd want to get in to an exciting police chase, or watch pedestrians rag doll through the air.

Your best bet would be to get them on an actual racing/driving simulator like iRacing or LiveForSpeed, or even GT5 for PS3 with all the driving assistance turned off, as it's not quite as 'boring' superficially.
THEN give them an incentive to finish a lap under a certain lap time.
Make it a big deal. Make it a good incentive. Make it a hard time to beat, in a car that is unforgiving and twitchy, on a difficult track, but short track.

The challenge will put the motivation for trying in, and they'll learn a lot of respect for how difficult and dangerous cars can be to actually drive well at speed.
Once they start to get near the time, they'll have learned a lot, and if they ever picked up something like Need For Speed again, they'd realise they were just driving clown cars, with driving dynamics and physics that have no depth to them whatsoever.

I used to love crazy, easy arcade racers at one point, until my dad posted a time on Sega Rally for Sega Saturn on Desert track that I just couldn't get anywhere near, even though I 'held go' all the time and was in the same car.
I spent months and months on that after school, with friends, till I finally got him, and I felt so proud to have beaten my dad.
I still remember it was a 52.54 he got, and then I got a 52.25. It took ages to even break in to the 53's

The problem with the NFS series is that you have no idea that to be fast, you sometimes need to be slow, and that you also have to brake hard, to be fast.
Those kinds of games encourage holding down a digital accelerator as a default, drifting through corners with canned physics effects, and then pressing the 'NOS' button when you actually want to accelerate.

Whenever I've let a friend play a racing simulator on my wheel, even on something like GT5, they all seem to drive it like they do NFS. They 'hold go' with their foot, all the way in to the braking area, turn the wheel, turn it some more, and then say 'it won't turn' before crashing in to a wall.

I've since taught my dad to drive fast using a G25 wheel setup and GTR2 with a downloaded Bedford Autodrome track, with the incentive being, if he could get under a certain time, he could tag along with me on the day and drive the track for real in my Mazda, which he loves, but isn't allowed to drive

It started off with going to fast in to every corner, thinking that was what was needed to beat a time I set, thinking it was impossible, and a week later he was consistently a second or so off, going much more steady, and hooked on the game.

The biggest nut to crack with the NFS generation is "sometimes you need to be slow to be fast" and "slow in, fast out- THAT way around!"

Make your kids chase a mythical number, let them learn and discover for themselves what that really takes. They'll end up seeing NFS for the pile of shite it really is.

Playing LiveForSpeed with my G25 made me catch a spin in my Mazda on my first track-day, and first time of really driving a car fast. It was all automatic, with my mind as paranoid about losing the back end as it is when I drive the fictional LX-6 around. It worked. If the same thing happened on the road on an oil patch, the same reflex learned from sim racing would kick in and hopefully allow me stay in control, or more in control.

As for general road safety, don't worry about this either. All my 'NFS friends', although rubbish drivers, when it comes down to it, are safe.
I think you'd be wasting your time with any kind of traffic simulator, or something that scores them on obeying traffic lights. I think that's enough to make someone dislike driving.
These sorts of things you learn on the road.

There are good drivers that go fast, and those that go steady. There are bad drivers that goes fast, and those that go steady.

The only thing you can get your kids interested in with a simulator is becoming a good driver.
Your kids will be too desensitised from anything they see on screen to take it seriously as far as turn signals and what-not goes. They'll be bored of it in a week.

tl;dr Set a time with your G27 on something like iRacing/LiveForSpeed.net/Gran Tourismo 5/GTR2 using manual gears and no driving assistance settings, on a tricky, but short track, offer your kids a big reward, something really genuinely significant if they can beat that time. Watch them fall in love with driving, learn how to control slides, and how you can't just 'hold go' all the time.